At the same time the Normans recognised that the Mercians had all along reckoned in silver scillings of 4 pence, and the men of Wessex in scillings of 5 pence.
The earlier pound of 240 sceatts or silver tremisses of 28·8 wheat-grains.
If we examine the actual coinage of the Anglo-Saxons we find that, like that of the Franks, it may be divided into two periods. The earlier one corresponded to the Merovingian period during which the penny or sceatt of Mercia and Wessex was of 28·8 wheat-grains, like the silver tremisses or pence across the Channel.[11] The later period commenced when Offa in Mercia, followed by Alfred in Wessex, abandoned the ‘sceatt’ and issued pence like those of the nova moneta of Charlemagne of 32 wheat-grains.
So marked is the distinction between the silver pence of the two periods in type and weight that they are known by numismatists as the ‘Sceatt series’ and the ‘Penny series.’
Finally, just as, in the case of the Frankish currency, the pound of 240 sceatts was the Roman pound of 6912 wheat-grains, so the pound of 240 of the later pence was the pound of the nova moneta of 7680 wheat-grains, which in England after the Conquest became the standard or Tower pound.
At the same time it must be remembered that the identity or difference in these cases is in the reckoning in wheat-grains, and that there was room for some variation in the actual weight of the coins.
V. THE MINAS WHICH SURVIVED IN USE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE ROMAN POUND.
According to the writers of the Merovingian and later period collected by Hultsch,[12] the Roman pound was not the only standard of weight which was in customary use in Europe.
The gold mina of 200 gold solidi.
We have seen that the commonly prevalent wergeld of 200 gold solidi was in fact the same thing, in wheat-grains, as the heavy Eastern and Greek gold mina of 19,200 wheat-grains. But besides this, there were two other minas of interest to this inquiry which seem to have been more or less locally in use, and more or less connected with the wergelds.